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As the former Vice President makes the rounds of talk shows to promote his new book “The Future,” he’s been under pressure to explain just how the world’s most famous climate change activist justifies selling out to an interest backed by oil money. (Al Jazeera is owned by the government of Qatar, the oil-rich Persian Gulf state.) So far, the explanations have been pretty weak.

Nowhere was the pressure greater than on “The Daily Show” Wednesday night. Jon Stewart demurs whenever anyone calls him a journalist, but if he wants it to stop he’ll have to quit showing up actual journalists by doing their job better than they do.

Asked about the cognitive dissonance of pocketing oil money while railing against fossil fuels, Gore initially — and repeatedly — tried the same dodge he’d used on Lauer and Letterman: that Al Jazeera is a fine network with high journalistic standards and particularly strong climate coverage.

“It was an easy choice after doing the diligence on the network itself,” he said. “They have a great reputation. They have the highest quality, most extensive, best climate coverage of any network in the world.”

But Stewart rejected that as the non-answer it was, continuing to hammer away at the gap between “mogul Al Gore and activist Al Gore.” “You had an opportunity to make a statement about your principles,” he said.

On the defensive, Gore resorted to crying poverty. “We were competing in a conglomerate world as an independent,” he said. “We don’t have deep pockets. We were profitable every year, but it got to a point where we had to sell. We could not keep going.”

(It would’ve been nice to see Stewart try to untangle that little nonsequitur — why a profitable network without a ton of debt to service would have no choice but to bail out. Nobody’s perfect.)

He also insisted that Qatar’s leaders “have announced a commitment to renewable energy…a visionary plan.”

“I’m very, very comfortable with it. I completely get the criticism, but this is a good choice.”

It was certainly a good choice financially for Gore, whose share of the sale price has been reported at around $100 million.

By the way, Gore may want to ease up a touch on his claims about Current’s journalistic track record, lest he resurrect his old reputation as an exaggerator. A couple of times this week, he’s claimed that Current won “every major award in television journalism.”

According to Current’s website, its list of honors includes “two Emmy® Awards, the Peabody Award, two Livingston Awards, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, numerous Webby Awards, the Television Academy Honor and the Hot Bird™ TV Award for Europe’s Best News Network.”

That’s certainly not a bad haul. But it’s a far cry from “every single award in television journalism” (as he phrased it on “Late Night”). If Current ever won a George Polk Award or an Edward R. Murrow Award, for instance, this is the first I’m hearing of it. Old habits die hard.

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They had no viewers and were trying to charge cable companies something like 11 cents per subscriber per month. Doesn’t sound like a sustainable business model. They got a great price, would be fools to turn it down.

I wonder if Keith Olbermann is getting anything out of the deal, or if he wishes he had stuck around on the glitchy set.

yeah no, at first I thought this was a polemic deal because it was Al Jazeera: middle east. Bad guys. But lets face it: current is puny. It cannot compete in the media market and it did not have a niche. It essentially was going against Huffington Post and even Drudge as a news congolomerator, and HuffPost has an owner than constantly is out there hawking her business. Gore is never out hawking Current, nor is he even seen as the face of it, IMHO. Then on second thought, I go back to Al Jazeera being a middle eastern media company. And in the terms of right thinking news organizations, an anti-American news agency. I thought that would be the real sour taste here, and not the oil and profits issue, really. So now I think, hey, Al Jazeera is Qatar. If you’re American, Qatar is what you want the Middle East to become, right? I say, good for Gore. He sold it. He made some money. He’s a capitalist. Bad for Al Jazeera that gets a struggling brand; I have no idea what they’ll do with it. Not even on my radar. I have no problem with this sale to Al Jazeera and think Gore is right about Jazeera journalism. It is trying to be the BBC of the Middle East and Qatar is far from the stereotypical radical Middle Eastern country.

I’m not a fan of Al Gore. I think he would have made a poor president. And I don’t care much for the news service he is involved with. It presents a slanted view of politics. On the other hand he should be free to profit from his legal business ventures. Al Jazeera may be owned by Qatar ( much more gas rich than oil rich by the way) but it has provided an independent voice for the people of the Middle East for years. I find it less biased and a lot more diverse than many of our mainstream news media. I hope that it’s new acquisition doesn’t change this.

Al Gore is just another Bonafide sleazy member of the extractor class who live like millionaires while they tax you to death. Not only is he a known pathological liar with his climate change bull, he could care less where his money comes from as long as he has it. I would call him scum but he would have to work to get back to that level.

Yeah, the Evil Entertainment Empire didn’t like it, such as Los Angeles dominated television doesn’t like the fact that Al Jazeera ran a long article by Bill McKibben of 350.org! So, these evil people use a typical tactic of theirs to cause good Al Gore some pain! Fact is, Hollywood-Burbank doesn’t like the Solar Panels that Al Gore and probably Al Jazeera promote, ever see a Solar Panel on TV? The Empire doesn’t like Muslims because so many of them refuse to watch any television (as I too refuse), AND the good morals of Qatar and many of the Muslim nations. (L.A. has to have it’s SINS, and sells them to everyone else, too!) Fact is, it was a good deal for environmentalists, because Libertarian Rupert Murdoch was trying to get Current TV. Maybe now we’ll see a difference on television with the wealthy of Qatar calling the shots instead of Hollywood-Burbank! (until the they get American troops marching through the streets of Qatar, turning over power to L.A.)